“I’m learning how to wear a scarf,” said Rep. Tony Cardenas, who now represents the eastern San Fernando Valley’s 29th District.

The newly elected Democrat, whose family originally hails from Mexico, is adapting to the East Coast weather. That includes getting used to walking in the snow, an experience he never had to deal with while serving in local office for the San Fernando Valley.

As the 113th Congress gets under way, Cardenas joins the ranks of incoming politicians, including some from the Los Angeles region, who are making their way through the halls for the first time.

There’s Nixon the diplomat, who had famously opened the door to China. And there’s Nixon of Watergate, who had infamously resigned in disgrace.

“He’s known for Watergate and China,” said Chenelle, who teaches eighth-grade history at Chime Institute in the San Fernando Valley community of Woodland Hills. “He opened up relations with China. (But) the Watergate scandal really left people disillusiioned,.”

Democrats representing California in Congress are promising to push for new gun control measures in the aftermath of the horrific slayings at a Connecticut elementary school last week, but the state’s Republicans representatives were mostly silent amid the renewed debate over firearms legislation.Josh Richman and Andrew Edwards in the Daily News,

An exclusive survey of all 53 California House members and members-elect, by the Los Angeles News Group and Bay Area News Group, found all 32 of the 38 Democrats who responded to the survey support re-enacting some version of the federal assault weapons ban that existed from 1994 to 2004.

Many would consider even more stringent gun controls and said some popular firearms, such as the .223-caliber AR-15, are “weapons of war” that are unfit for civilian use.

A federal judge Wednesday ordered prison and fines for Kinde Durkee, the former Democratic campaign treasurer who admitted taking more than $7 million from candidates across the state, including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Frank Girardot in the Daily News.

U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller said Durkee, 59, a Long Beach resident who maintained her headquarters in Burbank, tampered with the electoral process. She ordered Durkee, described by prosecutors as the “Bernie Madoff” of campaign treasurers, to serve 8 years and 1 month in federal prison and pay $10.5 million in fines.

Durkee’s acts disrupted campaigns – big and small – across California. She pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud in March.